cites Cuvier, Sir John Herschel, and Dr. Whewell in support of his case. If
that has been Mr. Gladstone's intention in mentioning these eminent names,
I may remark that, on this particular question, the only relevant authority
is that of Cuvier. But great as Cuvier was, it is to be remembered that, as
Mr. Gladstone incidentally remarks, he cannot now be called a recent
authority. In fact, he has been dead more than half a century; and the
palaeontology of our day is related to that of his, very much as the
geography of the sixteenth century is related to that of the fourteenth.
Since 1832, when Cuvier died, not only a new world, but new worlds, of
ancient life have been discovered; and those who have most faithfully
carried on the work of the chief founder of palaeontology have done most to
invalidate the essentially negative grounds of his speculative adherence to
tradition.
If Mr. Gladstone's latest information on these matters is derived from the
famous discourse prefixed to the _Ossemens Fossiles_, I can understand the
position he has taken up; if he has ever opened a respectable modern manual
of palaeontology, or geology, I cannot. For the facts which demolish his
whole argument are of the commonest notoriety. But before proceeding to
consider the evidence for this assertion we must be clear about the meaning
of the phraseology employed. {80}
I apprehend that when Mr. Gladstone uses the term "water-population" he
means those animals which in Genesis i. 21 (Revised Version) are spoken of
as "the great sea monsters and every living creature that moveth, which the
waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind." And I presume that it
will be agreed that whales and porpoises, sea fishes, and the innumerable
hosts of marine invertebrated animals, are meant thereby. So
"air-population" must be the equivalent of "fowl" in verse 20, and "every
winged fowl after its kind," verse 21. I suppose I may take it for granted
that by "fowl" we have here to understand birds--at any rate primarily.
Secondarily, it may be that the bats and the extinct pterodactyles, which
were flying reptiles, come under the same head. But whether all insects are
"creeping things" of the land-population, or whether flying insects are to
be included under the denomination of "winged fowl," is a point for the
decision of Hebrew exegetes. Lastly, I suppose I may assume that
"land-population" signifies "the cattle" and "the beast of the earth," and
"every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth," in verses 25 and 26;
presumably, it comprehends all kinds of terrestrial animals, vertebrate and
invertebrate, except such as may be comprised under the head of the
"air-population."
Now what I want to make clear is this: that if the terms
"water-population," "air-population," and "land-population" are understood
in the senses here defined, natural science has nothing to say in favour of
the proposition that they succeeded one another in {81} the order given by
Mr. Gladstone; but that, on the contrary, all the evidence we possess goes
to prove that they did not. Whence it will follow that, if Mr. Gladstone
has interpreted Genesis rightly (on which point I am most anxious to be
understood to offer no opinion), that interpretation is wholly
irreconcilable with the conclusions at present accepted by the interpreters
of nature--with everything that can be called "a demonstrated conclusion
and established fact" of natural science. And be it observed that I am not
here dealing with a question of speculation, but with a question of fact.
Either the geological record is sufficiently complete to afford us a means
of determining the order in which animals have made their appearance on the
globe or it is not. If it is, the determination of that order is little
more than a mere matter of observation; if it is not, then natural science
neither affirms nor refutes the "fourfold order," but is simply silent.
The series of the fossiliferous deposits, which contain the remains of the
animals which have lived on the earth in past ages of its history, and
which can alone afford the evidence required by natural science of the
order of appearance of their different species, may be grouped in the
manner shown in the left-hand column of the following table, the oldest
being at the bottom:--
Formations First known appearance of
Quaternary.
Pliocene.
Miocene.
Eocene. Vertebrate _air_-population (Bats).
{82}
Cretaceous.
Jurassic Vertebrate _air_-population (Birds and
Pterodactyles).
Triassic.
Upper Palaeozoic.
Middle Palaeozoic Vertebrate _land_-population (Amphibia,
Reptilia [?]).
Lower Palaeozoic.
Silurian. Vertebrate _water_-population (Fishes).
Invertebrate _air_ and _land_-population (Flying
Insects and Scorpions).
Cambrian Invertebrate _water_-population (much
earlier, if _Eozoon_ is animal).
In the right-hand column I have noted the group of strata in which,
according to our present information, the _land_, _air_, and
_water_-populations respectively appear for the first time; and in
consequence of the ambiguity about the meaning of "fowl," I have separately
indicated the first appearance of bats, birds, flying reptiles, and flying
insects. It will be observed that, if "fowl" means only "bird," or at most
flying vertebrate, then the first certain evidence of the latter, in the
Jurassic epoch, is posterior to the first appearance of truly terrestrial
_Amphibia_, and possibly of true reptiles, in the Carboniferous epoch
(Middle Palaeozoic) by a prodigious interval of time.
The water-population of vertebrated animals first appears in the Upper
Silurian.[12] Therefore, if we found ourselves on vertebrated animals and
take "fowl" to mean birds only, or, at most, flying vertebrates, natural
science says that the order of succession was water, land, and
air-population, and {83} not--as Mr. Gladstone, founding himself on
Genesis, says--water, air, land-population. If a chronicler of Greece
affirmed that the age of Alexander preceded that of Pericles and
immediately succeeded that of the Trojan war, Mr. Gladstone would hardly
say that this order is "understood to have been so affirmed by historical
science that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion and established
fact." Yet natural science "affirms" his "fourfold order" to exactly the
same extent--neither more nor less.
Suppose, however, that "fowl" is to be taken to include flying insects. In
that case, the first appearance of an air-population must be shifted back
for long ages, recent discovery having shown that they occur in rocks of
Silurian age. Hence there might still have been hope for the fourfold
order, were it not that the fates unkindly determined that
scorpions--"creeping things that creep on the earth" _par
excellence_--turned up in Silurian strata nearly at the same time. So that,
if the word in the original Hebrew translated "fowl" should really after
all mean "cockroach"--and I have great faith in the elasticity of that
tongue in the hands of Biblical exegetes--the order primarily suggested by
the existing evidence--
2. Land and air-population;
1. Water-population;
and Mr. Gladstone's order--
3. Land-population;
2. Air-population;
1. Water-population;
{84} can by no means be made to coincide. As a matter of fact, then, the
statement so confidently put forward turns out to be devoid of foundation
and in direct contradiction of the evidence at present at our disposal.[13]
If, stepping beyond that which may be learned from the facts of the
successive appearance of the forms of animal life upon the surface of the
globe, in so far as they are yet made known to us by natural science, we
apply our reasoning faculties to the task of finding out what those
observed facts mean, the present conclusions of the interpreters of nature
appear to be no less directly in conflict with those of the latest
interpreter of Genesis.
Mr. Gladstone appears to admit that there is some truth in the doctrine of
evolution, and indeed places it under very high patronage.
I contend that evolution in its highest form has not been a {85} thing
heretofore unknown to history, to philosophy, or to theology. I contend
that it was before the mind of Saint Paul when he taught that in the
fulness of time God sent forth His Son, and of Eusebius when he wrote
the _Preparation for the Gospel_, and of Augustine when he composed the
_City of God_ (p. 706).
Has any one ever disputed the contention, thus solemnly enunciated, that
the doctrine of evolution was not invented the day before yesterday? Has
any one ever dreamed of claiming it as a modern innovation? Is there any
one so ignorant of the history of philosophy as to be unaware that it is
one of the forms in which speculation embodied itself long before the time
either of the Bishop of Hippo or of the Apostle to the Gentiles? Is Mr.
Gladstone, of all people in the world, disposed to ignore the founders of
Greek philosophy, to say nothing of Indian sages to whom evolution was a
familiar notion ages before Paul of Tarsus was born? But it is ungrateful
to cavil at even the most oblique admission of the possible value of one of
those affirmations of natural science which really may be said to be "a
demonstrated conclusion and established fact." I note it with pleasure, if
only for the purpose of introducing the observation that, if there is any
truth whatever in the doctrine of evolution as applied to animals, Mr.
Gladstone's gloss on Genesis in the following passage is hardly happy:--
God created
(_a_) The water-population;
(_b_) The air-population.
And they receive His benediction (v. 20-23).
{86}
6. Pursuing this regular progression from the lower to the higher, from
the simple to the complex, the text now gives us the work of the sixth
"day," which supplies the land-population, air and water having been
already supplied (pp. 695, 696).
The gloss to which I refer is the assumption that the "air-population"
forms a term in the order of progression from lower to higher, from simple
to complex--the place of which lies between the water-population below and
the land-population above--and I speak of it as a "gloss," because the
pentateuchal writer is nowise responsible for it.
But it is not true that the air-population, as a whole, is "lower" or less
"complex" than the land-population. On the contrary, every beginner in the
study of animal morphology is aware that the organisation of a bat, of a
bird, or of a pterodactyle presupposes that of a terrestrial quadruped; and
that it is intelligible only as an extreme modification of the organisation
of a terrestrial mammal or reptile. In the same way winged insects (if they
are to be counted among the "air-population") presuppose insects which were
wingless, and, therefore, as "creeping things," were part of the
land-population. Thus theory is as much opposed as observation to the
admission that natural science endorses the succession of animal life which
Mr. Gladstone finds in Genesis. On the contrary, a good many
representatives of natural science would be prepared to say, on theoretical
grounds alone, that it is incredible that the "air-population" should have
appeared before the "land-population"--and that, if this assertion is to be
{87} found in Genesis, it merely demonstrates the scientific worthlessness
of the story of which it forms a part.
Indeed, we may go further. It is not even admissible to say that the
water-population, as a whole, appeared before the air and the
land-populations. According to the Authorised Version, Genesis especially
mentions, among the animals created on the fifth day, "great whales," in
place of which the Revised Version reads "great sea monsters." Far be it
from me to give an opinion which rendering is right, or whether either is
right. All I desire to remark is, that if whales and porpoises, dugongs and
manatees, are to be regarded as members of the water-population (and if
they are not, what animals can claim the designation?), then that much of
the water-population has, as certainly, originated later than the
land-population as bats and birds have. For I am not aware that any
competent judge would hesitate to admit that the organisation of these
animals shows the most obvious signs of their descent from terrestrial
quadrupeds.
A similar criticism applies to Mr. Gladstone's assumption that, as the
fourth act of that "orderly succession of times" enunciated in Genesis,
"the land-population consummated in man."
If this means simply that man is the final term in the evolutional series
of which he forms a part, I do not suppose that any objection will be
raised to that statement on the part of students of natural science. But if
the pentateuchal author goes further than this, and intends to say that
which is ascribed to him by {88} Mr. Gladstone, I think natural science
will have to enter a _caveat_. It is by not any means certain that man--I
mean the species _Homo sapiens_ of zoological terminology--has
"consummated" the land-population in the sense of appearing at a later
period of time than any other. Let me make my meaning clear by an example.
From a morphological point of view, our beautiful and useful
contemporary--I might almost call him colleague--the horse (_Equus
caballus_), is the last term of the evolutional series to which he belongs,
just as _Homo sapiens_ is the last term of the series of which he is a
member. If I want to know whether the species _Equus caballus_ made its
appearance on the surface of the globe before or after _Homo sapiens_,
deduction from known laws does not help me. There is no reason, that I know
of, why one should have appeared sooner or later than the other. If I turn
to observation, I find abundant remains of _Equus caballus_ in Quaternary
strata, perhaps a little earlier. The existence of _Homo sapiens_ in the
Quaternary epoch is also certain. Evidence has been adduced in favour of
man's existence in the Pliocene, or even in the Miocene epoch. It does not
satisfy me; but I have no reason to doubt that the fact may be so,
nevertheless. Indeed, I think it is quite possible that further research
will show that _Homo sapiens_ existed, not only before _Equus caballus_,
but before many other of the existing forms of animal life; so that, if all
the species of animals have been separately created, man, in this case,
would by no means be the "consummation" of the land-population. {89}
I am raising no objection to the position of the fourth term in Mr.
Gladstone's "order"--on the facts, as they stand, it is quite open to any
one to hold, as a pious opinion, that the fabrication of man was the acme
and final achievement of the process of peopling the globe. But it must not
be said that natural science counts this opinion among her "demonstrated
conclusions and established facts," for there would be just as much, or as
little, reason for ranging the contrary opinion among them.
It may seem superfluous to add to the evidence that Mr. Gladstone has been
utterly misled in supposing that his interpretation of Genesis receives any
support from natural science. But it is as well to do one's work thoroughly
while one is about it; and I think it may be advisable to point out that
the facts, as they are at present known, not only refute Mr. Gladstone's
interpretation of Genesis in detail, but are opposed to the central idea on
which it appears to be based.
There must be some position from which the reconcilers of science and
Genesis will not retreat, some central idea the maintenance of which is
vital and its refutation fatal. Even if they now allow that the words "the
evening and the morning" have not the least reference to a natural day, but
mean a period of any number of millions of years that may be necessary;
even if they are driven to admit that the word "creation," which so many
millions of pious Jews and Christians have held, and still hold, to mean a
sudden act of the Deity, signifies a process of gradual {90} evolution of
one species from another, extending through immeasurable time; even if they
are willing to grant that the asserted coincidence of the order of Nature
with the "fourfold order" ascribed to Genesis is an obvious error instead
of an established truth; they are surely prepared to make a last stand upon
the conception which underlies the whole, and which constitutes the essence
of Mr. Gladstone's "fourfold division, set forth in an orderly succession
of times." It is, that the animal species which compose the
water-population, the air-population, and the land-population respectively,
originated during three distinct and successive periods of time, and only
during those periods of time.
This statement appears to me to be the interpretation of Genesis which Mr.
Gladstone supports, reduced to its simplest expression. "Period of time" is
substituted for "day"; "originated" is substituted for "created"; and "any
order required" for that adopted by Mr. Gladstone. It is necessary to make
this proviso, for if "day" may mean a few million years, and "creation" may
mean evolution, then it is obvious that the order (1) water-population, (2)
air-population, (3) land-population, may also mean (1) water-population,
(2) land-population, (3) air-population; and it would be unkind to bind
down the reconcilers to this detail when one has parted with so many others
to oblige them.
But even this sublimated essence of the pentateuchal doctrine (if it be
such) remains as discordant with natural science as ever. {91}
It is not true that the species composing any one of the three populations
originated during any one of three successive periods of time, and not at
any other of these.
Undoubtedly, it is in the highest degree probable that animal life appeared
first under aquatic conditions; that terrestrial forms appeared later, and
flying animals only after land animals; but it is, at the same time,
testified by all the evidence we possess, that the great majority, if not
the whole, of the primordial species of each division have long since died
out and have been replaced by a vast succession of new forms. Hundreds of
thousands of animal species, as distinct as those which now compose our
water, land, and air-populations, have come into existence and died out
again, throughout the aeons of geological time which separate us from the
lower Palaeozoic epoch, when, as I have pointed out, our present evidence of
the existence of such distinct populations commences. If the species of
animals have all been separately created, then it follows that hundreds of
thousands of acts of creative energy have occurred, at intervals,
throughout the whole time recorded by the fossiliferous rocks; and, during
the greater part of that time, the "creation" of the members of the water,
land, and air-populations must have gone on contemporaneously.
If we represent the water, land, and air-populations by _a_, _b_, and _c_
respectively, and take vertical succession on the page to indicate order in
time, then the following schemes will roughly shadow forth the contrast I
have been endeavouring to explain:-- {92}
Genesis (as interpreted by Nature (as interpreted by
Mr. Gladstone). natural science).
b b b c^1 a^3 b^2
c c c c a^2 b^1
a a a b a^1 b
a a a
So far as I can see, there is only one resource left for those modern
representatives of Sisyphus, the reconcilers of Genesis with science; and
it has the advantage of being founded on a perfectly legitimate appeal to
our ignorance. It has been seen that, on any interpretation of the terms
water-population and land-population, it must be admitted that invertebrate
representatives of these populations existed during the lower Palaeozoic
epoch. No evolutionist can hesitate to admit that other land animals (and
possibly vertebrates among them) may have existed during that time, of the
history of which we know so little; and, further, that scorpions are
animals of such high organisation that it is highly probable their
existence indicates that of a long antecedent land-population of a similar
character.
Then, since the land-population is said not to have been created until the
sixth day, it necessarily follows that the evidence of the order in which
animals appeared must be sought in the record of those older Palaeozoic
times in which only traces of the water-population have as yet been
discovered.
Therefore, if any one chooses to say that the creative work took place in
the Cambrian or Laurentian epoch, in exactly that manner which Mr.
Gladstone does, and natural science does not, affirm, natural {93} science
is not in a position to disprove the accuracy of the statement. Only one
cannot have one's cake and eat it too, and such safety from the
contradiction of science means the forfeiture of her support.
Whether the account of the work of the first, second, and third days in
Genesis would be confirmed by the demonstration of the truth of the nebular
hypothesis; whether it is corroborated by what is known of the nature and
probable relative antiquity of the heavenly bodies; whether, if the Hebrew
word translated "firmament" in the Authorised Version really means
"expanse," the assertion that the waters are partly under this "expanse"
and partly above it would be any more confirmed by the ascertained facts of
physical geography and meteorology than it was before; whether the creation
of the whole vegetable world, and especially of "grass, herb yielding seed
after its kind, and tree bearing fruit," before any kind of animal, is
"affirmed" by the apparently plain teaching of botanical palaeontology, that
grasses and fruit-trees originated long subsequently to animals--all these
are questions which, if I mistake not, would be answered decisively in the
negative by those who are specially conversant with the sciences involved.
And it must be recollected that the issue raised by Mr. Gladstone is not
whether, by some effort of ingenuity, the pentateuchal story can be shown
to be not disprovable by scientific knowledge, but whether it is supported
thereby.
There is nothing, then, in the criticisms of Dr. Reville but what
rather tends to confirm than to impair the old-fashioned {94} belief
that there is a revelation in the book of Genesis (p. 694).
The form into which Mr. Gladstone has thought fit to throw this opinion
leaves me in doubt as to its substance. I do not understand how a hostile
criticism can, under any circumstances, tend to confirm that which it
attacks. If, however, Mr. Gladstone merely means to express his personal
impression, "as one wholly destitute of that kind of knowledge which
carries authority," that he has destroyed the value of these criticisms, I
have neither the wish nor the right to attempt to disturb his faith. On the
other hand, I may be permitted to state my own conviction that, so far as
natural science is involved, M. Reville's observations retain the exact
value they possessed before Mr. Gladstone attacked them.
Trusting that I have now said enough to secure the author of a wise and
moderate disquisition upon a topic which seems fated to stir unwisdom and
fanaticism to their depths, a fuller measure of justice than has hitherto
been accorded to him, I retire from my self-appointed championship, with
the hope that I shall not hereafter be called upon by M. Reville to
apologise for damage done to his strong case by imperfect or impulsive
advocacy. But, perhaps, I may be permitted to add a word or two, on my own
account, in reference to the great question of the relations between
science and religion; since it is one about which I have thought a good
deal ever since I have been able to think at all; and about which I have
{95} ventured to express my views publicly, more than once, in the course
of the last thirty years.
The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so much,
appears to me to be purely factitious--fabricated, on the one hand, by
short-sighted religious people who confound a certain branch of science,
theology, with religion; and, on the other, by equally short-sighted
scientific people who forget that science takes for its province only that
which is susceptible of clear intellectual comprehension; and that, outside
the boundaries of that province, they must be content with imagination,
with hope, and with ignorance.